A woman fighting the Home Office to have her British citizenship recognised fears many more people could end up having their status questioned by Government officials, especially if they have been adopted like she was.

The problems for Mary-Ann Astbury came to light when she applied for a new passport in October after she let hers lapse 20 years ago. She was told by Home Office that she was not British and could face deportation.

Ms Astbury, who was born in Ontario, Canada, came to the UK in 1971 on her adoptive parents' British passport.

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The 54-year-old from Porthtowan, who has lived in the UK for 47 years, obtained a British passport in 1983 to visit relatives in Canada.

She said she let it lapse because she and her ex-husband and their children - who are all British - never took holidays abroad, being too busy raising their family and working to save money to buy a home here.

Mary-Ann Astbury is fighting the Home Office to have her British citizenship recognised after her passport lapsed and she was told she is not British (Image: Sally Adams)

In October she re-applied for a passport so she and her partner could go on holidays abroad now that their children have flown the nest.

She was told by officials she could not renew her passport because there were no records going back far enough proving she was a British citizen in the first place.

Ms Astbury even enlisted her local MP to put pressure on the Government to see sense, but to no avail.

Following much publicity, the Home Office said it had apologised, insisting it would contact her "to discuss her options should she wish to apply to naturalise as a British citizen".

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Ms Astbury said: "What they have come back with is that they will help me get through the citizenship application process. My argument is that I shouldn't have to go through that rigmarole, do quizzes and what have you and spend £2,000 I don't have on becoming a British citizen when I am already a British citizen."

At the time the passport office turned her application down the Home Office said it could not accept her expired passport as evidence, because its records only went back to 1985.

It said it declined her application because she was not a British citizen and her biological parents were "unknown".

Mary-Ann Astbury aged seven, the year before she arrived in the UK (Image: Sally Adams)

Ms Astbury added. "I've grown up here and I've been here for 47 years. I've worked all my adult life, paid all my taxes, national insurance, everything. I've had two children here and I was married to an Englishman. I am British.

"This whole thing has been so upsetting not only for me and my partner but for my entire family. I feel I have been punished for being adopted when it should have no bearing whatsoever. As far as I'm concerned I am as British as my adopted parents and brothers.

"In my parents' mind I'm their daughter and I'm British like them. It makes me wonder whether other people's citizenship will be questioned by the Home Office because they have been adopted."

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Ms Astbury arrived in the UK from a Commonwealth country at the same time as many Caribbean migrants in the so-called Windrush generation. Like her, many of those who arrived as children travelled on their parents' passports and never applied for travel documents.

The BBC reports that there are now 500,000 people resident in the UK who were born in a Commonwealth country and arrived before 1971 - including the Windrush arrivals - according to estimates by Oxford University's Migration Observatory.

Mary-Ann Astbury with her expired British passport has struggled to get the Home Office to recognise her British nationality and reissue her with a new passport (Image: Sally Adams)

The 1971 Immigration Act, which came into law in 1973, gave people who had already moved to Britain indefinite leave to remain.

While not from India, Jamaica or the Caribbeans, Ms Astbury believed there could be many more people who fall in the 'others' category who could see their British citizenships come into question.

She added: "We will see a lot more people come out because they find themselves in a similar saituation. My advice to them is 'stand up, fight and be counted'."